So with how often this picture, or ones with the same effective meaning, get passed around social media, I’m sure you’ve seen something like it before.

Well, I’ve got some good news for dreamers and star-wishers: This is a gross exaggeration that comes from laymen talking about science-y things while suffering from a condition known as “being a laymen”.

Yes, these stars are an astronomically long ways off. Such a long way, in fact, that the closest known star to earth (other than the sun, obviously) is roughly 25,277,549,200,000 miles away. That would be 25.277 trillion miles – and again, that’s the closest star to earth.

So you’d think that would mean it’s going to take a heck of a long time, like maybe a few million years, for the light to get here, right? Sure…if you don’t understand just how fast light moves.

That 25.277 trillion miles? That’s roughly 4.3 light years. (Light year – the distance that light travels in one earth year) Yup. When you look at that star, the light hitting your eyes left that star around the time this year’s graduating class was enjoying their Labor Day weekend…of their 8th grade year.

The night those same high school seniors walk the stage, there will be light from 26 stars hitting the earth that started it’s journey after they began the 1st grade.

So 26 stars are really close, astronomically speaking. So what? There’s countless stars up there. What’s the likelihood that you’re going to wish on one of those 26 stars? Good question, but it’s not about those 26 stars. Those 26 are just to make it clear how fast light really travels.

There are 88 constellations in modern astronomy, comprised of a few thousand stars total. Of those, about 98% are less than 2500 lightyears away. When you look up at the constellations tonight, the light hitting your eyes began it’s journey after the death of Confucius in 479 BCE, or something more meaningful to westerners, after the creation of the Roman Republic in 509 BCE. (Hey, I said more meaningful, not significantly more meaningful)

The brightest stars in the sky? (read: the ones most noticeable and most likely to be wished upon)

The bulk of them are less than 500 light-years away. Looking at a list of the 500 brightest stars, there are only a handful that are outside 1500 light years away, so for the most likely stars to be chosen for wishing upon (since they’re the most likely to be the “first star I see tonight”) nearly all of them the light left the star in question more recently than the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE.

Now, the specific collection of stars I’ve talked about are still a really – really – small portion of the stars in the night sky, even if they are the brightest, most noticeable, and most likely stars to be wished upon. The thing is, though, that the Milky Way (The galaxy we float in) is only about 120,000 light years across at it’s widest, and astronomers give a rough estimate of 300 Billion stars just inside the milky way. Stars in other galaxies are so far away that they can’t be seen, individually, by the naked eye. At the distances even the closest neighboring galaxies are are, you’re seeing the entire galaxy as a single point of light and merely thinking it is a star because you can’t tell the difference – if you can see them at all.

So go ahead. Wish upon a star. Chances are, it’s still around. Now, do remember, though, that it’s going to take a heck of a long time to get there.

It takes a sound wave roughly 880,991 years to travel just 1 light-year. The closest star? Your wish will take about 3,788,261 years and 4 months to reach it. That 4 months, afterall, makes all the difference.

Yup. So chances are the star you’re wishing upon is still there, meaning you’re not too late.

However, you might want to grab a few Snickers bars, because you’re going to be waiting a while…

…and now I find myself wondering how hard it could be to hi-jack a semi full of candy bars.

“Virology is the study of viruses – submicroscopic, parasitic particles of genetic material contained in a protein coat – and virus-like agents. It focuses on the following aspects of viruses: their structure, classification and evolution, their ways to infect and exploit host cells for reproduction, their interaction with host organism physiology and immunity, the diseases they cause, the techniques to isolate and culture them, and their use in research and therapy. Virology is considered to be a subfield of microbiology or of medicine. ”

Note the inclusion of evolution in the list of primary aspects of the study of viruses.

If you’ve ever needed solid, undeniable proof that Darwinian evolution occurs, virology is pretty damned well the nail in the coffin of doubt, assuming you’re capable of accepting observable facts as part of reality.

Over the last several decades, virologists have watched as viruses continue to observably evolve by natural selection in order to survive the barrage of anti-viral medicines and vaccines that we create to combat them.

Virology is a sub-field of microbiology, which, as a larger field, has also documented the observable evolution – again, through natural selection – of bacteria to survive the antibiotics we create to kill them.

Everyone knows that this is what happens. The news media has been talking about “superbugs” for over 20 years – viruses and bacteria that have developed a strong resistance or outright immunity to the treatments that used to kill them, and more often than not became stronger and more deadly in the process. THAT is Darwinian evolution in action: The most resilient genetic strains of a virus or bacteria survive the onslaught of modern medicine to procreate as their less resilient counterparts die off.

This is not something that takes millions of years. It takes only decades. In some cases it has taken less than a decade. Virologists can and have directly observed HIV and AIDS evolving as a single genetic strain spreads out in a chain from a patient 0. It’s not a huge evolutionary shift from one person to the next, but when you get a few hundred people down the chain of infection, the virus can start looking very different.

There are many diseases today (both bacterial and viral) for which active, observable evolution that has occurred in our lifetime is the only reason 1) they exist in the first place and/or 2) they have not been completely wiped out by modern medicine.

Evolution is also the reason we (or at least some of us) have the mental capacity necessary to create medicines that will combat these illnesses, and many others, until the day we do, finally, overcome them.

Evolution: Not “just a theory.” A theory backed by evidence. You just have to look for it.

Anti-vaccine people claim that there are two substances used as preservatives that cause – not can cause, not might cause, but absolutely will cause – autism or other developmental issues if given to infants, toddlers and children. Those two substances are mercury and formaldehyde.

Mercury:

Consumption of elemental mercury at a young age has been found to increase the chances of developmental problems and cellular-level brain damage. While it is possible that it can increase the chances of autism, it is not known for sure.

However, elemental mercury is not found in any vaccine in the world. One of the preservatives used in some vaccines is Thiomersal (also known as Thimerosal in the states), which is a mercury-containing compound.

**There is a big difference between elemental mercury and a mercury-containing compound in the same way there is a big difference between elemental sodium, which reacts with water in an explosively violent manner, and salt, which is a sodium-containing compound.**

There is no evidence, even of the anomalous variety, supporting the possibility that Thiomersal could, in the amounts present in vaccines, cause any kind of developmental problems or cellular tissue damage in the brain.

Formaldehyde:

Yes, many vaccines use formaldehyde as a preservative. The amount used, however, is a small fraction of the what is necessary to be even remotely toxic.

Further, formaldehyde is constantly being created naturally in your body as a byproduct of 1 carbon metabolism. Your body is producing formaldehyde as you read this. Really, it is. Because it is constantly being produced in your body, your liver is pretty damned good at cleaning it out, too. It metabolizes out of your system at a rate of about 22mg per minute. For comparison, the body removes alcohol from your system at a rate of about 15ml per hour, which equates to about 190mg per minute. One drink of alcohol, be it a can/bottle of beer, a shot or a glass of wine, contains around half an ounce, or about 11.4 grams, of alcohol, hence it taking about an hour per drink to work itself out of your system.

Meanwhile, the highest formaldehyde content of any vaccine currently on the market is around 90mg. If you, as a grown adult, were to receive every vaccine on the market in a 5 minute window, not only would it not be enough formaldehyde to be even remotely harmful to you, but it would all be cleaned out of your system in less than 2 hours.

And then there’s the fact that you can request preservative-free vaccines for yourself or your child. Allergies to the preservatives used are common enough that all vaccines are required to have a preservative-free version available upon request in basically every nation that has an FDA counterpart. Are there shortages of these? It happens. Will it take a little longer to get the preservative-free versions? It can if demand has been high for them recently. Can you inform your doctor ahead of time so that they’ll have it when it’s time for vaccination? Definitely.

This is the point where it becomes unquestionably obvious that people who refuse to vaccinate their child/children because of these non-existent “risks” are really just ignorant fools who are endangering our children for no good reason.